Stan Taylor

I’ve seen the new diet drug alli promoted heavily at Walgreens. This blogger interprets the marketing hype for us: “A simplified medical description of the drug is that it’s a fat blocker. It stops your body from absorbing some of the fat in your diet. . . But here’s the most important thing the drug does: it makes you shit oil. Worse, it makes you shit your pants.”
My favorite part of the post is the blogger’s interpretation of the alli web site bullshit (aka WSBS):

WSBS: The excess fat that passes out of your body is not harmful. In fact, you may recognize it as something that looks like the oil on top of a pizza.
No BS: Oh dear god. Pizza is one of my favourite foods and these evil fucks have done their best to turn me off it for life. It will be very hard to look at a pizza again without wondering if someone on this drug has taken a shit on it.
WSBS: Eating a low-fat diet lowers the chance of these bowel changes. (my emphasis)
No BS: Even if you do cut back on fat, you’re still going to shit oil.
WSBS: …pick a day to begin taking alli, such as a weekend day so you can stay close to home if you experience a treatment effect.
No BS: Do not go out in public after taking this drug. You are going to shit yourself. Stay close to a toilet.
WSBS: If you’re getting ready to travel or attend a social event, hold off on starting with alli until the event is over.
No BS: Don’t say you weren’t warned. You are seriously going to shit yourself.
WSBS: You may not usually get gassy, but it’s a possibility when you take alli. The bathroom is really the best place to go when that happens.
No BS: You’re old life is over. Forget what you think you know about your body. You are going to fart uncontrollably. And there will be follow-through. This is not going to be something you want to share.
And my absolute favourite (which is to say, the part of the website that horrifies me most):
“You may feel an urgent need to go to the bathroom. Until you have a sense of any treatment effects, it’s probably a smart idea to wear dark pants, and bring a change of clothes with you to work.”
Oh. My. Fucking. God. They are so sure you are going to shit your pants they are saying you should accept the inevitable. There is no way to avoid this. So wear dark pants to hide the liquid shit stains. And bring a change of clothes. Because your first set are going to get impregnated with liquid shit.

Today, AP has a story about a cat that predicts the death of nursing home patients:

Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.
…
Doctors say most of the people who get a visit from the sweet-faced, gray-and-white cat are so ill they probably don’t know he’s there, so patients aren’t aware he’s a harbinger of death. Most families are grateful for the advanced warning, although one wanted Oscar out of the room while a family member died. When Oscar is put outside, he paces and meows his displeasure.

The AP reporter is missing the other obvious conclusion: the cat is sucking the life out of the patients. Everyone knows, after all, that cats can kill babies.

This article tops digg.com today. It is the same idea as the one I expressed in my previous post, just with more detail.

There’s an interesting commentary in the Washington Post that’s making the blog rounds today: “Stop Trying to ‘Save’ Africa.” The author’s aversion to a certain type of attitude in regard to Africa reminds me of my dislike of the slogan “Save the Earth.”
I’m pretty sure life on earth will continue on in some form for millions, if not billions, more years, even if we humans manage to make the environment inhospitable for our own species.
So, I think ‘Save the Earth’ really means: help to keep the environment in a state that will continue to support human life similar to the way it currently is.” That in itself is a worthy cause, but the hubris implied in ‘Save the Earth’ really rubs me the wrong way.

I’ve sung the praises of eMusic before, but I have another reason to like them today. After I downloaded all my tracks last month, I accidentally deleted all of them before importing them into iTunes. I was bummed that I’d lost $20 of music. This morning, I went to eMusic to start finding some music to download in the coming month when I realized I still had a few downloads available from last month. I decided to download a few of the tracks I’d deleted. After I downloaded one, I noticed that the number of available downloads hadn’t been decremented. I had accidentally discovered that I could re-download my previous purchases! I just recovered the lost tracks by downloading them again!

Once again, I find myself in full agreement with aethiest John Scalzi. The image below, which I stole from his site, says it all.

Last week, I was chatting with the phlebotomist while I was donating blood. In the course of the conversation, he told me, “You know, one of the first thing we teach new people around here is that if you make a mistake, don’t say “Oops!” or “Uh oh!”

I haven’t posted about a book in quite some time. A couple of reasons: I haven’t been reading much lately, and I haven’t read anything that really captured my attention. I’m glad to say that The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber has broken that stretch. This book passed several of my criteria for a good thriller:

• Characters were well fleshed out
• Only a couple of times did I read something and think “Ah, this will be important later”. Given the complexity of the plot, that’s pretty good.
• I also didn’t guess much of the conclusion–just a couple of pretty obvious points. I was looking forward to seeing how the various plots and characters would come together
• Finally, most of the plot lines came together very well. The only part that I thought was handled poorly was the part of the brother Paul–though he was an interesting character nonetheless.
All in all, a very enjoyable read.

As I’ve mentioned before, Fred Clark’s ongoing page-by-page commentary of the horrendously bad first Left Behind novel is always an interesting read. In this week’s commentary, I found an interesting conversation in the comments. I think it’s easiest just to quote the relevant comments.
First, Reverend Ref responds to a line from the novel:

Everything he had tried had failed. … Rayford had never felt more powerless and desperate.
And this is also something that is theologically wrong. We don’t convert people, that is God’s job (or the Holy Spirit if you want to get technical). I tell my parishioners all the time, “All we can do is invite people; conversion is God’s department.” This fundagelical push to constantly figure out how many people you’ve saved is, for lack of a better term, whacked. It’s nothing more than spiritual bullying. Our job as Christians is to proclaim the kingdom of God. We proclaim. We invite. We welcome. We talk. God converts. If the other person rejects that, it’s not our problem. But that DOES NOT mean we revel in their (anticipated?) destruction.
Love God. Love your neighbor. Remember you aren’t the boss.

Bugmaster resplies:

Well, what about people like myself, who don’t believe that there is any “boss” at all ? You have shown us the way to salvation, and we rejected it as a fantasy. Now (assuming you’re right), we will burn in Hell for all eternity / will be stuck in Limbo forever / will be separate from God for all time / won’t get our 72 virgins / etc. Wouldn’t you want to push your point… and push and push and push… until the atheists do convert ? It’s for their own good, and you love them, right ?
Ok, this is different from typical evangelicals, who only care about themselves (“I’ve converted 10 people last week ! Woo !”), but still, I’m sure there are some people out there who think that way. Three of them were in my math class…

And here’s Reverend Ref’s reply:

If you don’t believe that there is any “boss” at all, and if you reject it as fantasy, that’s your call (that whole free will thing). Am I disappointed? Sure, for a variety of reasons. However, I will not push and push and push… until the atheists do convert. It may be for your own good, as you say, but so was syrup of ipecac (or so my grandmother told me). I would much rather invite you into a discussion about God and invite you to church, be turned down, and then talk about about the Mariners or Seahawks or the weather and have you remain on speaking terms with me (maybe even be considered a friend), than to push and push and push and piss you off.
At least with Option #1 there’s a chance you might change your mind. That’s how I operate during my bar visits. There’s a whole hospitality thing going on there. Not to mention the fact that I do not believe God put me on a quota system.

And Bugmaster again:

Well, if more people thought like you, we’d have less wars (and less theocratic maniacs in charge), so your stance is quite admirable. Still, it sounds like you’d rather acquire a friend in this life, than rescue the same person’s soul from an eternity of torment in the next life. Some people (i.e., zealously religious people) could interpret this as a selfish attitude.

Reverend Ref:

Um … not quite. I’d rather remain on speaking terms with you. Whether you are or are not my friend, I really couldn’t care less. However, I believe that conversion happens through conversation, which has the potential to open one up to the working of the Holy Spirit. If I push and push and push, as you said earlier, and do nothing but piss you off about me in particular and Christianity in general, then I have helped to shut the door. And that, in my book, is sinful behavior.
I don’t know where a conversation will lead, but I do know that not being willing to converse, or sit down at table or any other words/actions that shuts people down will lead nowhere. Witness my own Anglican Communion and the various behaviors there about not wanting to converse with or commune with the “wrong” people. At least if we keep talking, the potential for conversion remains.

And finally, Bugmaster:

Well, your position does make sense. I don’t know much about the Anglican Communion, but some Protestant varieties here in America also have such an isolationist approach. Pretty sad.

Here we have Bugmaster, a self-professed aethist, who has been reading and participating in the comments of a blog by a liberal evangelical for months or longer, and yet, after all this exposure to Fred Clark and many of his commenters, Bugmaster still thinks that their (and my) brand of Christianity is the exception, not the norm. That’s a sad statement on American Christian culture.

I keep my resume on my personal web site all the time as part of my online profile, even when I’m not looking for a job. As a result, I get quite a few calls from recruiters. Over the years, I’ve discovered that most of them follow a funny pattern:

My cell phone rings. I see that it’s a number I don’t recognize, often from a different area code. The beginning of the call almost invariably goes like this:
Me (using my sonorous, who-the-hell-is-calling voice): ‘Stan Taylor’
Caller: Hi, Stan Taylor? How are you today?
Me (suspicious): Fine, thank you.
Caller: Is this a good time to talk?
Me: I don’t know. What do you want to talk about?
Caller (sounding surprised by my answer): My name is Joe Blow, and I found your resume… I have a position that I think you’re qualified for…

I’m not sure why they always ask how I’m doing before they say anything else. I guess it must be that ‘make a personal connection’ thing. Likewise, I don’t understand why they ask me if it’s a good time to talk before they introduce themselves. I guess if they introduced themselves first and then asked, it would be easier for me just to hang up.